My son Sean loves music! Everywhere he goes, he has music playing or he’s humming and singing some song. Music helps him cope and focus on difficult tasks and he, like me, enjoys sharing his passions with others. He loves converting all his friends into fans of the songs or artist that he is currently into. He studies these artists and uses Google to learn all he can. Years ago, he met recording artist Tori Kelly and after meeting my children, she said to me “that son of yours has the music in him. Keep encouraging him”.
I’m not one of those parents that thinks that his young child is going to be the next music sensation. I think my kids are amazing and will support them with their passions, but ten years from now my heart won’t be broken if Sean doesn’t tour with Ed Sheeran as his opening act. Believe me! I would love to retire early! My heart will be broken if he no longer enjoys music the way he does now. I just want my children to be happy, but in order for them to grow, my wife and I need to push them into uncomfortable situations.
Sean has been taking singing lessons for the past year. When we ask our kids if they want to start something, we are clear with them that, they have to see it through. We don’t quit or walk out on commitments. If you start it, you will finish it. In this case, his months of lessons culminated into a holiday performance. He would have to sing, on stage, by himself and in front of a crowd of people. When starting the lessons he quickly agreed to it because he just wanted to sing, but as the concert day approached, the self-doubt and stage fright started to kick in. For the week leading up to the performance, he was threatening to run off stage, refuse to go and was letting his stage fright control his emotions. We (Christal and I) held firm to the Murphy way and reminded him that Murphy’s don’t quit.
A few days before Sean’s performance, I was at the House of Blues in Houston getting ready to introduce the opening act for my annual radio station Christmas concert. Rob Thomas was the headliner, Dean Lewis was the support and a new artist named John K was the opening act. I always bring on the opening act because I have a knack for remembering the names of all the sponsors and charities involved in the support of these events (I don’t bring cue cards on stage because, to me, that seems insincere). It also guarantees that everyone gets their promised promotional and title mentions and most importantly, it allows me to start drinking sooner. I kid, but this is one of the last big promotions we put on for the year and I want to enjoy the show as soon as I can. It’s a lot of work to put these concerts together, so after the stage announcement, I can put my brain to rest for a bit and enjoy the fruits of our labors.
Per the run of show schedule, I showed up five minutes before the first performance of the night and waited side stage for my cue to grab the microphone and walk on stage.
Side note, if the first thing you say when walking on stage in front of 1000s of people is “make some noise”, then you really need to #Tryharder with your stage announcement creativity. You’re lame if you do that. Anyway, that’s a radio guy pet peeve of mine.
As I was waiting for my cue to introduce the opening act, I saw a guitar pick on the ground. Not really sure who it belonged to or what band might have used it recently, but I picked it up and stuck it into my pocket. You should always pick up a guitar pick. It’s one of those things you have to do. It could have an epic story attached to it or maybe it once belonged to Mick Jagger? Unless you find one on the bathroom floor of a concert venue. Go ahead and leave that one there. Yuck. Ewww. No!
I placed the pick in my jacket pocket, grabbed the microphone and introduced the band. I didn’t say “make some noise” nor did I bring an index card.
Flash forward to the evening of Sean’s Christmas performance. His confidence was rattled and his body language was that of someone with the weight of the world on their shoulders. I hate seeing my kids like this, but I know that the stress was self-imposed and he needed to be pushed and encouraged going into this challenge. As we dropped him off with his teacher and the other 30 plus performers, I knelt down, gave him a big hug and handed him the guitar pick that was still inside the pocket of my jacket. I explained that the pick helped me make my stage announcements during the concert and I told him if he gets nervous, just reach down into his pocket and rub his fingers over the smooth, triangular shaped pick. It’s a lucky pick and it was meant for me to pick up and share with someone who needed it.
He took the pick, hugged me and sat down in the waiting area as the rest of us found our seats in the audience. According to the schedule, Sean was to perform somewhere in the middle of the list of performers. As a parent, there’s no winning when sitting through a show like this. If your kid goes early, you still have to sit and watch everyone else’s kid sing Christmas songs. If you go last…you still have to sit and watch everyone else’s kid sing Christmas songs. For Sean’s sake I wanted it to happen sooner than later so he wouldn’t have to sit and worry about it for 90 minutes prior to singing.
The show starts and the third performer ran off after forgetting the words to her song. I look over across the room at Sean and he’s nodding his head “no” as in “I don’t want to do this”. A few more kids performed and I see him dancing and head bopping a bit. When the tenth kid got up to sing, Sean stood up, ran across the room and hugged me and my wife tightly. I thought for sure this was his last ditch effort to get out of performing. I whisper to him “you got this dude”. Sean steps back, takes the pick out of his pants, puts it in my hand and says “You need this more than me. I’m good”. I kiss him on the head, he hugs my wife and daughter and runs back over to his seat. A few kids later and its Sean’s turn to perform. And what does he do? Nails it! In my opinion, I’ve never heard a better version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in my entire life! He even took a moment to dab at the end of the song as his way of putting punctuation on a long stressful week. We pushed him, he did it and what do you know, he didn’t die.
Sean Murphy is my hero.
As a parent, it’s important to push your kids into new and sometimes uncomfortable situations. They need you to be their compass and direct them towards things that will scare them. #Tryharder to stay firm and don’t let them quit things they start. This isn’t a video game, this is life and as painful as it is to watch them suffer and labor through the process, they learn a lot about themselves. You learn a lot about them as well.
